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By Serge Duchêne
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The former commentator turned politician, Raphaël Glucksmann, was due to announce on Sunday evening that he will run in next year’s French presidential election, joining an already crowded field of contenders, including within the left itself.
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At 46, this former essayist and MEP, who heads the centre-left party Place publique, was expected to make his bid official in a prime-time interview on the TF1 television channel.
It was also on TF1 that, on 26 May, the 46-year-old MEP announced that he was giving himself three months “to criss-cross the country”, “to propose a new patriotic contract” and “to reunite his political family” ahead of the presidential election.
While the announcement comes as no surprise and will not change much in the short term, his decision is expected to have an immediate consequence: Glucksmann’s partner, journalist Léa Salamé, a leading figure on rival public channel France 2, is expected to announce that she is stepping back to avoid any conflict of interest during the campaign.
The leader of France’s far right, Marine Le Pen, sees her best chance yet of capturing the Élysée in 2027 after three failed attempts, but numerous candidates from President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp (he cannot seek another term after two stints in the Élysée), as well as from the left, have already declared their intentions.
The leader of the radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is also running, for a fourth time, while the head of the Greens, Marine Tondelier, is campaigning in the joint primary despite being pregnant; former Green minister Delphine Batho has announced her candidacy to ward off what she calls a “rikikisation” and a “disappearance” of environmental politics; for their part, the Socialist Party (PS) first secretary Olivier Faure and even, potentially, former Socialist president François Hollande are considering throwing their hats into the ring.
In June 2026, Le Nouvel Obs counted more than twenty-five candidacies already officially declared or claimed.
Can “Glucksmania” cross the age barrier?
Opinion polls put Raphaël Glucksmann – popular among young people, to the point that some speak of a “Glucksmania” – on 10 to 12% of voting intentions; a respectable score, but probably not enough to reach the second round.
He can also point to his 13.8% in the last European elections, where he headed a PS-Place Publique list that made him the leading figure on the left.
In order to avoid an excessive fragmentation of the vote, the Socialist Party and Place publique plan to hold a primary in October to choose a single candidate. The details of this selection process are to be finalised in the coming days and approved by the bodies of both parties next Tuesday.
Rank-and-file Socialists, consulted in early July, rejected the open primary sought by PS leader Olivier Faure, opting instead for a “closed primary”, reserved for members of the PS, Place publique or a “social-democratic pole”, creating a smaller electorate more favourable to Raphaël Glucksmann.
Although Glucksmann strikes a more reformist and centrist tone than the PS, he has every interest in working with this historic party and drawing on its electoral machine, as he does not have a strong enough structure of his own to support his likely candidacy.
The son of philosopher André Glucksmann, he worked between 2009 and 2013, when he was still a young idealist with unruly hair, as an adviser to Mikheil Saakashvili, the staunchly pro-Western former Georgian president. Currently imprisoned in his home country, Saakashvili was a determined opponent of Russia after the 2008 war between the two countries.
A fervent defender of Europe and a fierce opponent of the far right, Glucksmann is also a vigorous supporter of Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion and is known for his hard line on Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Born in Beirut and aged 46, Salamé had already announced that she would step down from presenting the flagship news bulletin she has anchored since 2025 if her partner ran for the presidency. Salamé, who presents the news and was initially due to return on Monday, is expected to be replaced by Jean-Baptiste Marteau, the stand-in who has been in the chair this summer.
She has nonetheless insisted that she remains objective. “I am an independent and honest journalist, a free woman,” she said in February, while acknowledging that questions about their personal and professional situation were “legitimate”.
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